IMMACULATE British lawns will become a thing of the past as changing weather patterns make it impossible to create the perfect garden.

Experts fear the summer will be prone to extreme weather conditions in years to come, with periods of torrential rain and prolonged droughts becoming the norm.

As a result, maintaining a classic lawn will become more difficult, prompting warnings that gardeners seeking the “bowling green” look will have to make do with rougher grass instead.

Drier springs and wetter summers will also mean plants in beds and borders will struggle to flourish.

The stark warning was made by experts from the Met Office and the horticultural world during a recent Royal Horticultural Society conference.

Professor Richard Bisgrove, an expert in turf management and garden history, believes people will have to abandon attempts at the perfect lawn.

Instead gardeners should raise the height of their lawn mower blades in the summertime to ensure a healthy patch of grass.

The retired University of Reading academic said: “My view is that climate change won’t affect gardens dramatically but the weather will.

“Nobody can tell one year to the next what we will have.

“In terms of grass, I would say to a large extent the less effort you put into it the better. People should accept a slightly higher cut of grass, more daisies and buttercups.

“In general, intensive inputs into grass management are futile. If you are after the perfect lawn you have to cut it closely, at least once a week.

Most younger people are willing to hack at it a bit when it bothers them, then leave it at that

Professor Richard Bisgrove, an expert in turf management and garden history

There are some people for whom the perfect bowling green lawn is the only thing they can live with so they will have to pay the price for it.

“Very short grass will go brown in just a short spell of dry weather so you have to irrigate, remove moss and weeds which all uses up more resources. Most people who now aim for the bowling green look are probably over the age of 75.

“Most younger people are willing to hack at it a bit when it bothers them, then leave it at that.”

Professor Julia Slingo, the chief scientist at the Met Office, said: “We should all be worried about climate change, we are taking the planet into uncharted territories through our own activities. We are taking our planet into a climate that we haven’t seen for a very long time, going back to before there were gardens in the UK. In the UK we will be buffered from most of the climate change because we live downstream from the Atlantic Ocean, that is why we have lovely gardens now.”

The Met Office is today set to reveal whether 2012 was the wettest year on record in the UK.